Sunday, December 1, 2013

MORE Ronin

We tried some bigger buntai (150 points) one a slightly
larger surface ~3’x3’.

I’d noted that the close combat
can be fast and deadly and very quickly become rather one-sided when one side
started taking loses. I thought I’d like to test some games with a bit more
shooting. I made up three buntai; a Bushi Buntai with a Bousho, a Samurai and
Four Ashigaru – small with one heavy hitter, a so-so samurai and four shmoes
(two of which could shoot) and all armoured, a Koryu with a Sensai, and Senpai,
four Kohai(?) and an initiate (skill wise way better than the samurai, but
without any armour or shooting ability), and a Bandit Buntai – the best they
had was their leader who was pretty much the same as the samurai in the Bushi
buntai, with a whole bunch of unarmoured, low-ranking bandits – basically a mob
– with four archers!

GAME ONE

Finnegan decided to take the
Bushi Buntai and thought I should take the bandits. Hunting down bandits seemed
a noble thing for some Samurai to do…

SCENARIO

We played the standard Skirmish
Scenario. Both of us were to kill the enemy’s leader as a secondary objective.

The game was to last 11 turns.

FORCES

Lion Clan Bushi Buntai

Bushou – Rank 5

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Naginata

- Commander, Intuition,
Powerful, Fast

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana

- Kenjutsu

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yari

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yumi

Bandit Buntai

Leader – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Tetsubo

- Commander, Powerful

Gashira – Rank 2

- Katana, Naginata

- Commander

3x Bandits – Rank 1

- Katana

4x Bandits – Rank 1

- Katana, Yumi

Peasant – Rank 0

- Improvised Weapon

THE GAME

(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)

Finnegan setting up his forces.

The bandits at the end of the
first turn. I was playing a little cagey - not as cagey as I could have been –
but these were clearly my martial superiors so I wasn’t about to charge
headlong into close combat (as is my usual plan of attack!).

The Bushi after the first turn.
Looks like he had a plan… archers on the flanks warriors in a tight unit moving
up the center.

Those Ashigaru archers fired
arrows on the move and scored one hit on one of my bandit archers.

Turn Two saw a proper exchange
of arrows and I hit both of his guys!

His warriors cautiously
approaching up the middle. They probably should have ran to engage as quickly
as possible.

On Turn Three, when their leader
moved within 12” I let her have it with all the arrows I could – standing still
in the movement phase and firing only in the action phase to give my guys their
best shot. I got extremely lucky and rolled 12 with one – just enough to cause
a grievous wound and then 11 with another that caused a light wound and took
down the Bushou – the Leader of the Bushi!

Finnegan almost cried. (I know,
I’m a terrible dad…)

I convinced him to carry one –
as this was all in the name of play-testing a system that was new to me – just
to see how badly it might go for the bushi after this. In a campaign I think
anyone that this happened to would probably concede to save the rest of their
guys.

In another turn or two they were
all in contact. Actually this might have been after the second round of combat.
All of his guys were outnumbered. One of the Ashigaru (Rank 1) was fighting the
Gashira (Rank 2) and a bandit (Rank 1) – I was pretty amazed how long they held
out. I think armour really helps!

Eventually I took one Ashigaru
down (that had been grievously wounded by his opponent in the first round of
combat and stuck around for two or three more rounds and even managed to wound
his assailant before expiring).

Then finally I got his other
Ashigaru – the one that had been fighting the Gashira and another Bandit.

His Samurai was fighting, for a
number of turns, against my leader (which was pretty much his equal) and two
bandits and managed to grievously wound my leader – while only being lightly
wounded himself. I can’t remember if we played another round and saw his
Samurai go down in a blaze of glory or if we called it at this point because he
was way to upset… (there were tears… many tears…)

While he finally kill two of my
archers – and grievously wound another I only managed to take out one of his.

Afterwards to show him that it
really was just terrible luck to have had his bushou killed in the hail of
arrows and how badly it would have gone for me if she had made it into contact
I set her up against my own leader AND two bandits – just to show him how
badass she was. In one turn my leader was dead and I think one of the bandits
may have been grievously wounded. She was unscathed. Bushou are nasty. NASTY!

I think I probably could have
prevented her getting killed if I’d given her the Yadome-jutsu (arrow-stopping)
ability – basically knocking arrows out of the air with her naginata! Would
have had to have swapped out two of her other abilities to give her this and
the prerequisite Naginatajutsu. But that would have made her nigh impossible to
kill with arrows. Basic defence of 6, +3 for heavy armour, +2 for Yadome-jutsu…
11… so only if a 12 was rolled could she even be STUNNED, 13 for a light wound.
Archers would have to be standing still and shooting at medium range to have a
hope of causing any sort of injury. This, of course would not help against
Teppo… (Arquebuses).

Despite all the tears and disappointment, when I asked the kids if they wanted their own Bushi Buntai to paint and play with, they were both very excited about the idea (I happened to notice that Wargames Factory Samurai and Ashigaru are on 40% off until midnight tonight!)

GAME TWO

In the evening Rick and Curtis
showed up to have a go at Ronin. Curtis took the Bushi Buntai (because it was
closest to where he was sitting down) and Rick decided to go for he Kakita
Academy Koryu Buntai. Had the Bushi been facing the bandits again I might have
switched up those abilities just to see, but as the Koryu had no missile
weapons to speak of, I left it as is…

SCENARIO

Again I set up a Skirmish
scenario. And again, both rolled the same secondary objectives: kill the
opponents leader.

FORCES

Lion Clan Bushi Buntai

Bushou – Rank 5

- Heavy Armour, Katana, Naginata

- Commander, Intuition,
Powerful, Fast

Samurai – Rank 3

- Heavy Armour, Katana

- Kenjutsu

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yari

2x Ashigaru – Rank 1

-Medium Armour, Katana, Yumi

Kakita Academy Koryu Buntai

Sensei – Rank 5

- Katana

- Commander, Kenjutsu, Powerful,
Intuition

Senpai – Rank 4

- Katana

- Commander, Kenjutsu

4x Kohai – Rank 3

- Katana

- Kenjutsu

Initiate – Rank 1

- Katana

THE GAME

The Koryu completely outclassed
(and slightly outnumbered) the Bushi in terms of rank and ablilities, but
completely lacked armour or missile weapons, so I was curious to see how this
worked out…

Having heard of how things went
down in the afternoon, Rick, sensibly attempted to keep his Buntai in cover as
they approached the Bushi. Unfortunately they had to come out at some point.
Curtis’ Ashigaru rained down arrows on them from the moment they could see them
in the woods. By the time they rushed out into contact with the Bushi two or
three were already injured, one, I think, grievously so…

(Remember: click on the pictures
for a bigger version)

I think this was Turn Five at
the end of the movement phase when everyone had moved into contact. Two of the
Koryu students are lightly wounded, one is grievously wounded.

“Hey, D’you think we should shoot
into that mess…?”

They probably could have - friendlies being all quite well armoured... but Curtis chose not to, he did try to pic off a few of the trailing students.

The end of the first round of
combat… The Koryu’s Sensei is critically injured (after his class with the
Bushi’s Bushou) along with one of his students. Two other students are
grievously injured. Things are looking bad for the Koryu.

The Bush had only suffered one
fatality - an Ashigaru - and the other Ashigaru was grievously injured.

The Koryu had to check morale
the next turn and I believe they failed and thus were “Waivering” (also with
the death of their Sensei their morale level dropped from 9 to 7)

The end of the second round of
combat. The Senpai has now been slain by the Bushou, and two other Koryu
students have been finished off.

On of the students, however,
managed to charge one of the ashigaru archers and cut him down before he could
get another shot off..

I think we rolled morale for
them at the beginning of the next turn and they failed and thus would be
routing…

It was a slaughter…

Armour, hey? It works.

I’m wondering if Teppos (Arquebuses)
would be the leveler – or if they’d be unbalancing “hero-killers”. I have one
model with a Teppo that I just finished painting. I’ll have to work him into
the next game.

There's a few things I have to work out, but I'm feeling fairly confident this will work fine for the Winter Wargaming Weekend!

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More Samurai, Ronin, and Ashigaru miniatures – and hopefully
some more Ronin game reports.

Well, that´s pretty normal in his age, I´d recon. My little brother always used to ragequit in tears in his younger years but I think he´s grown to accept that fighting always involves the chance to loose.

AND you should be happy that he doesn´t take defeat according to his role, like a true Samurai... better lock up all the kitchen knives in a safe ;)

Well, the Archers did what they where supposed to - kill the well trained elite warrior before they get into close combat to do real damage. That´s why European Knights where nearly extinguished after all ^^